Last of four gun dealers gets nine years in prison

TRENTON  A young gun dealer who also sold cop-killer bullets was sent up for at least 4 ½ years Tuesday morning by Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mark J. Fleming.

Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa said Reuben Rios, 22, was caught up a state police probe aimed at taking down gun traffickers in the state.

Rios was sentenced to up to nine years in state prison, including 4 ½ years before parole eligibility. Rios pleaded guilty on Dec. 17 to a charge of illegally possessing a .38-caliber handgun. The handgun was illegally sold to another individual on Sept. 22, 2011 in Trenton.

The state obtained an indictment in April 2012 charging Rios and three other Trentonians  Francisco Gonzalez, 35, Edward Ramos, 22, and Juan Rivera, 23  with conspiring to traffic firearms and ammunition, including body armor penetrating rounds, throughout Trenton.

During an undercover investigation by the New Jersey State Police in 2011, the defendants illegally sold a rifle and four handguns, including handguns that were stolen and had defaced serial numbers.

The other three defendants previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced as follows:

 Gonzalez pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a handgun and was sentenced on March 12 by Judge Fleming to five years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibility.

 Ramos pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a handgun and eluding police and was sentenced on Aug. 15, 2012 by Superior Court Judge Thomas Brown to five years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibility. He was charged with eluding because, when State Police detectives pulled his car over on Nov. 2, 2011, and were approaching his car on foot, he abruptly reversed the car, turned around and sped away.

 Rivera pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy and was sentenced on March 5 by Judge Fleming to five years in state prison, including one year of parole ineligibility.

The four defendants were among 57 individuals indicted last year in an initiative launched by the AGe in which the Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police are aggressively targeting gun violence through strategic investigations focused on seizing existing weapons in violent areas, disrupting weapons trafficking into those areas, and aggressively prosecuting criminals involved in the illegal sale and possession of weapons.

Last year, the State Police Intelligence Section more than doubled the number of detectives assigned specifically to weapons trafficking, forming new Weapons Trafficking North and South Units and tripling annual gun seizures by the section.